I will be posting about my kale chip experiment soon. I have read and heard many good things about kale chips, so when I saw the organic kale is $1.50/bunch this week at New Flower Market, I decided to get some. I have two “recipes” – one that you can make in the oven and one that you can make in a dehydrator. I tried the oven method today and think I over oiled them, but some were good. I am going to try the dehydrator method on Sunday and will post a comparison with photos.

When another mother and I met with a Dallas-area Whole Foods store ambassador about food allergies a few weeks ago, she gave us a tour of the produce area. She told us about all the health benefits of kale (better than spinach, she said), and she gave us a small piece to try. It was interesting, but not something I would eat raw very regularly. The kale chips were much more tolerable. Best of all, my daughter LOVED them.

I price-checked produce at Sam’s Club this week to see if I could buy any of these items at a lower cost, but Sam’s was just as expensive or more expensive than the grocery stores! That is not always the case though. I am going to try to hit Sam’s and possibly Costco occasionally to see if buying in bulk will be cheaper. While I will not be covering the warehouse clubs’ prices regularly, I will post any deals I find there.

I am now trying to buy organic whenever possible. For example, I am only buying organic apples since I have read that apples are on the “dirty dozen” list of of produce where it makes the most sense to go organic. I figure if we’re going to do this diet to see if it helps my daughter’s health, then we might as well avoid eating those foods with higher concentrations of pesticide residues. I will include conventional and organic produce in the comparison chart so you can decide where to go based on your preferences. I will create three graphical icons to indicate if produce is:

– Organic
– Locally-grown (“Texas”)
– USA-grown

but for now I just used symbols in the spreadsheet (the symbol meanings are in the footer of each page).

Please keep in mind that stores do not always list the size of the produce. For example, avocados are usually “small” or “large” but the ads don’t always specify. So it will be difficult to know for sure which store has the best price. Whenever possible, I will check on sizes in person and will update the chart.

And last but not least, this is a work-in-progress. This week, I am posting just a PDF download of the chart. In future weeks, I will pull out the best deals and post a summary with a link to the full download.

Please let me know what you like or dislike about this format. And if you stop by a store and find additional produce on sale that is not advertised, please let me know and I will update this list. I plan to do similar comparisons for meat/seafood, nuts and dairy soon.

Annie’s Homegrown Shells & Cheese – $1.25 eachThere are coupon mailers out there. I don’t have one, but wanted to list this in case you do. I think $1.25 a box without a coupon is still a decent price, but I haven’t purchased these since I started using coupons so I’m not sure.

Yoplait Yogurt Cups (4-6 oz) – $0.26 (when you buy 12-18 and if your coupon is doubled)
Price: $0.39 each – You must buy a minimum of 10 and a max of 20 to get this price
Coupon: $0.40/6 – 3/22 SS or 4/19 SS (buy 12 if you use this coupon)

If you didn’t make it to Sprouts before the 17th or they were out of berries when you got there, you’re in luck…

Berries and pears are cheaper this week!

The Fuji apples are a bit more expensive than last week, but still a good price.

Just for fun, I’ve compared Sprouts to other local stores that have ads online or in the paper. This gives you a general idea where to shop for produce this week, but please keep in mind there are other produce specials at all the stores that I have not listed here.

I could not find an ad for Walmart, but when I was there earlier in the week, their prices were higher than sprouts for pears and strawberries. I didn’t check the other items. You can try a price match if you take the ad from another store in with you. I haven’t had many good experiences at Walmart, so I’d rather go to two or three stores than try to do a price match at Walmart.

These sale prices are for the Dallas area and in many cases the brand is not mentioned, so it may not be an apples to apples comparison (no pun intended – really). And = best price

I used to waste a lot of money on fresh produce. I had no idea the prices could vary so greatly (I just didn’t pay attention), and some of the produce would inevitably go bad before we ate it. Money was being thrown down the drain! At Janet’s suggestion, I am going to try Fiesta this week and see how their produce prices look. I’ll report back if I can make it over there.

There are several deals at the grocery stores this week, but it takes me a long time to compile everything so it will be a few days before I post what I’ve found.

Looks like I’m going to have an awesome tool to help me speed up the matching process so I can post everything sooner and again at the end of the week when the new newspaper inserts come out. I’m very excited about it!!

If you need to get some grocery shopping done before I post the match-ups, you can grab many of the coupon match-ups at Couponmom.com or Hotcouponworld.com. I’ve spotted at least one deal that I haven’t seen listed anywhere else yet, but I need to work up some scenarios to share before I post it!